Five members visited Bellbrook a fishery near Tiverton to sample the fishing in the six lakes.
www.bellbrookfishery.co.uk There are a wide range of tickets available that started at £20 for catch & release to a 6 fish limit at £55. One of the six lakes - Ironmill - is a specimen lake stocked with rainbows, blues & browns from 4lb up to very large fish that includes doubles. The other five lakes are stocked with 2lb plus trout.
I was staying with Sue in our caravan for a few days near Tiverton. It wasn't far to Bellbrook from the caravan site on the Grand Western Canal for the 10am start. I arrived as TonyV was cooking the bacon baps (perfect timing & excellent, thank you Tony!). Tony, Pat, Bob & Kelvin had travelled up from Plymouth. The fishery owner, Chris Atwell, arrived as we were buying our permits.
The fishery is based on two small valleys with the specimen lake in one valley and the other five in the next valley. All of us headed down to the specimen lake where the fishing is from wooden platforms around the lake. At times we could see the trout in the fairly clear water and on several occasions I watched fish come up to my damsel nymph fly only to turn away at the last. At lunchtime I walked back up to the fishing hut and then up the other valley to try another lake with Kelvin and Tony. It was sunny and warm so we had left our waterproofs at the cars. Needless to say, we hadn't been fishing on Exmoor Lake long before a very black cloud headed our way accompanied by a very heavy shower of rain.
I changed to a dry black daddy long legs alternating to a black gnat from time to time. I had one rainbow on the dry daddy which later went 2lb 12oz. At 3pm we met at the hut for the weigh-in.
Pat had taken one rainbow on the specimen lake and at 5lb was the winning fish. Bob had one for 3lb 13oz, and I had the one of 2lb 12oz. Kelvin & I decided to fish on after the others had headed back to Plymouth and we went up to Sedgemoor Lake where Kelvin had a rainbow of 3lb on a floating black beetle. I persevered with the dry fly but was quite unable to connect with all the swirls and pulls from apparently interested trout.
Kelvin & I packed up around 6.30.
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| A view of the rearing ponds and Ironmill - the specimen lake |
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| The specimen lake |
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| TonyH at the specimen lake |
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| A very heavy shower at Exmoor Lake |
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| All quiet again at Exmoor Lake |
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| TonyV fishing Sedgemoor Lake |
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| Pat with his rainbow of 5lb |
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| The fishing party - left to right TonyH, TonyV, Pat, Bob & Kelvin |
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| Looking up Sedgemoor Lake |
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| Kelvin casting a black beetle on Sedgemoor |
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| and about to land a 3lb-er |
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